


Problem/Solution: Keener Edition

by enzhe



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Endgame doesn't exist, F/M, Gen, Happy Hogan's brilliant plan, Infinity War Doesn't Exist, M/M, only happiness and teen angst for these kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-03-07 22:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18882325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enzhe/pseuds/enzhe
Summary: Harley Keener accepts a position as Spider-man's Don't-Be-An-Idiot Guard (hard to be a bodyguard to a guy who can bounce back from things that will quickly and efficiently kill you). Also chauffeur, babysitter, occasional engineer, sometimes-chef, and unknowing instigator of Peter Parker's Greatest Crisis Of All Time* (*thus far).He's not always nice, but he can get a job done.





	1. Happy Hogan, Gentleman for These Troubled Modern Times

**Author's Note:**

> Needed a break from sadness (see: my fic where Endgame exists) so I started this. No Endgame here. Thanos Dusted himself. Or Rhodey found Baby Thanos. Or there never was a Thanos. See how much better everything is already? 
> 
> Undecided whether other Avengers will be a thing or not. Feel free to share ideas if you have em :)

Happy Hogan has one foot through a door to the kind of impossible perfect happily-ever-after that only exists in Jane Austen novels, and he is not going to let anything under his control block his second foot from making it through.

“I don’t get it.”

“There’s nothing _not to get._ C’mon, Tony, for once—for once don’t give me a bad time on this, okay? It’s a conflict of interest, and I’m eliminating it. With a brilliant solution, and I don't use that word lightly. Don’t block me on this.”

“No, there is something to not get. You like Peter, you like Peter’s incredibly attractive aunt (can’t say I blame you, you’re a braver man than I though—) so stay Peter’s point guy, and you always have an excuse to see Aunt Hottie. Nothing has to change.”

“Never call her that again, Tony.”

Something must finally be getting through the idiot-genius’s selectively thick skull, because Tony finally looks up from his phone. Looks right into Happy’s eyes. How he can still be confused about this, Happy doesn’t know, but then there’s so much about common decency that Tony Stark doesn’t get—because he was never allowed it. Not by this family, never by the press, not even by his teammates. So-called friends.

“Okay, Boss, I’m gonna lay it out for you. I’m courting May, and I musta saved a saint in a previous life, ‘cause she hasn’t shut me down yet, and in the interest of not giving her any reason at all to shut me down ever, I can’t be paid for looking after her kid.”

“So do it for free.”

“Ha. Ha, so funny. Actually, I’m going to need a raise on one of my other jobs, because I’ve grown into my new pay level and no way I’m cutting back now. No, Tony, I need you to listen. We gotta be on totally even footing, May and me, this is a modern romance with no power imbalance bullshit—”

“Between you and May Parker, you’re on the losing side of any power imbalance, Hap.”

“God, don’t I know it. But I can’t be paid to keep her kid safe. You know I’ll die for him, Tony, you know it. But she has to know that she can—be mad at me, dump me, whatever—at any moment—and not put her kid in any kind of jeopardy. It’s all hypothetical, but it matters. It _matters._ ”

Tony’s head drops into his hands, and Happy feels a little bad. The guy’s always stressed. Usually Happy doesn’t add to it. This time, though, this time the best possible thing to ever happen in the life of Happy Hogan is on the line, and he has no choice but to push.

“Okay, Happy, I get it, I know you’re a gentleman. But don’t you think you’re taking this too far? There’s just no one else I trust. Not enough for this.”

And here is where the world’s most brilliant solution comes into play. “Not true, Boss. You got Potato Boy.”

“Happy. The hell?”

“You said there’s no one else you trust,” Happy says stubbornly. “Not true. You trust the potato kid. It’s perfect, Boss—”

“Tell me I’m hearing this all wrong. Tell me I’m not hearing you suggesting I hire a punk-ass teenager from bumfuck, Tennessee, a kid who is _one strike from getting expelled from high school,_ to take your job. Tell me you’re smarter than this, Hogan.”

“Two birds with one stone, Tony. The kid’s always pestering you for a job. You’re always pestering him to stay in school. He needs money. He won't take your money unless he's earned in. So you hire him, you make him attend the other kid's school as part of the job contract, he gets paid, he's not bored out of his mind 'cause he's up against all the other annoying baby geniuses—he stays in school and out of trouble. Keeps Parker out of trouble while he's at it. Bada-bing, bada-boom. Home-run for Hogan.”

"And how do you imagine, in this utopian vision of yours, that one mostly-normal teenaged disaster is going to keep another _superpowered_ teenaged disaster out of trouble? You know what? Scratch utopian, you’re going full dystopian on me. That trend ended for a reason. Like how sparkly vampires ended. You gonna suggest SI produce a line of glitter lotion next, Happy?"

Happy is fully prepared to bypass Tony's bullshit. "The Keener kid couldn't be more loyal to you if he was born to you, Tony. You want Parker safe, that's all the reason Keener'll ever need to keep Parker safe. 'Kid's good in a crisis,' you told me. Your exact words, and not ones you give lightly. Plus he'll look a hell of a lot less pervy hanging around high school bathrooms than I do, I'll tell you that."

"So that's what this is about."

"No, this is about me and May. Best thing that could happen to me in a hundred lifetimes, and I know I don't deserve it, but I'm fighting for it. Be on my side on this, Tony. Please."

The big guns. Happy can count on one hand the times he’s uttered the word _please_.

"...You really think this could be good for Harley?"

"You already know this would be good for Harley. Rose Hill's too small for a kid like him."

"What if Peter hates him?"

"Peter doesn't even hate the kid who calls him Penis. Gonna have to try harder than that, Tony."

"...I'll think about it."

1- 0 for Happy Hogan.


	2. Tony Stark and the Double-Decker Foldaway Couch Patent

* * *

Tony Stark doubts every decision he makes. He has to make them anyway—in split-seconds, no hesitation, far too many lives in the balance, all too often—and he hoped that, at some point, clear patterns would emerge. Algorithms he could plug variables into and predict objectively better outcomes with, so he can make choices with confidence that he’s doing what’s best, even when the variables are human.

Human variables are sucky variables though. He always gets them wrong, and the worst consequences aren’t the ones he has to live with—they’re the ones _other people_ live with, or without, because of him. 

So he’s nervous, waiting for Harley. It’s not like he even made the ultimate decision here—that choice was Happy’s first and Harley’s second, but with kids, impressionable, confused, over-eager _kids,_ just offering a choice feels like too much. He’s paving the way for two boys’ lives to change, and one of them doesn’t even know it yet. 

Harley steps out of the elevator, and he’s _tall._ It’s only been—half a year? Ten months. Is it normal for a kid to grow that much in ten months? He’s been watching Peter for a year and a half, and that kid has hardly grown at all. 

Huh. 

“You’re a giant,” he says, opening arms wide in greeting. “Get over here, kid. It’s good to see you. No problems getting here? Smooth drive?”

“‘Sup, old man,” Harley says easily. The grip he has on the duffle strap slung over his shoulder gives him away, though. “Your AI kept me on track. We’re pretty good friends now.”

“Glad to hear you’re getting along with Karen,” Tony says, and means it, warmth in his words and his hand as Harley grips it back. Boy’s got some serious callouses ridging his palm. What’s he been doing, chopping up trees all day every day? “It really is good to see you. You look good. Feeling okay?”

“Yeah.” But he shifts a bit, starts to slide the strap off his shoulder, changes his mind and shifts it back up. “Where does my stuff go?”

“Right. Set it wherever for now. Come to the table, I’ve got the important part waiting for you. You want a coke or something?”

“I’m good. Went through a drive-through before taking on the city.”

No more stalling then. The giant duffle bag gets dumped unceremoniously where Harley stands, and the kid follows him over to the dining table, where a brand new StarkPhone waits. There’s tension in every line of Harley’s body, despite the consciously casual slump he’s got going on, and decision-doubt bites hard. “Okay, we have two steps to go before this becomes official. First is signing the official contract. Nothing’s changed from the copies you’ve seen, but you’re welcome to twenty-four hours to look it over, get legal advice, request amendments, whatever. Can’t give you more than that, I’m afraid. Happy’s really rushing this.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t fine with the contract.”

Tony knows, from a not-entirely-legal peek at Harley’s browser history, that the kid spent a good eight hours studying contract norms and laws—and that’s not counting the six hours of podcasts he downloaded on the subject. They’d sent him a redacted version of Happy’s relevant contract, for comparison—mostly so the kid would know that the expectations and compensation compare, in hopes of making him less prickly about everything Tony wants to give him. 

One of many things Tony appreciates about Harley Keener: what he considers seriously, he considers all the way. Ignorance isn’t allowed in the picture, not where Harley can help it. 

“Thought you might’ve had second thoughts on the drive up. Which would be A-OK, by the way. At any point before these next two steps are finalized, you wanna pull out—listen to me, Harley, _pull out._ Zero hard feelings. Stay here a few days or weeks or as long as you want anyway, explore the city, we can look at other options from there.”

“What’s Step 2?”

Tony hesitates, just for a second. This part isn't very fun. “An interview with the principal at Peter’s school. Your acceptance is only tentative, with the final decision determined through the interview. And I can’t be there for it. I mean, I can wait outside, which is pretty uncool—”

Harley’s eyebrow shoots up. “This principal dude stood up to Iron Man? Damn.” He doesn’t sound intimidated. He sounds impressed. 

This kid. Happy knew exactly what he was doing, cinching his argument with Tony’s trust, and this is one way Harley earns it, over and over again: by fearing and not-fearing all the right things. Harley Keener has earned Tony’s trust a hundred times over. 

It settles his stomach. “Let him see who you are, Harl. He'd be stupid to turn away a student with your potential, and he hasn't been stupid with Peter. Hopefully no selective stupidity strikes. ...Anyway that’s Step 2. Step 1: unlock that phone, sign the contract waiting on it whenever you’re ready, and once the contract is signed, the phone’s your key to everything else. There’s an apartment directly below mine with your name on the lease. A couple more cars in the garage. Direct access to a checking account for expenses, insurance info, everything listed in the contract. A few extras for funsies.”

Harley signs the contract without hesitation. 

Tony trails him back to the elevator and down a level, tiny bubbles of excitement starting to manifest somewhere under his ribs. Harley’s taking to everything really, really well, and the apartment is pretty perfect for him, if Tony knows anything about the kid at all. And then all that’s left is Peter. 

_Peter_ floods his brain with its own special, familiar flavor of worry and anxiety, but he’ll deal with that when he’s actually _dealing_ with it. Right now Harley has just figured out how to work through the security checks on the phone to get Karen to click his front door open, and now they’re inside, and Harley’s eyes are blowing wide. 

_Cozy industrial_ is what the interior designer contracted to redo the place had called it. Floor-to-ceiling french windows, polished concrete floors scattered with graphic rugs, a loft with a fireman’s pole to slide down and a two-story bouldering wall to climb up and another entire wall of bookcases. The staircase to the loft doubles as a bookcase, too. There’s a simple, open-plan kitchen with all the latest appliances, an entertainment center with an eight foot screen and all the latest gaming systems nestled in the corner between the kitchen and non-window wall. Comfortable furniture in muted colors that’s as minimalist as anything genuinely comfortable can get. Lots of plants. Tony’s going to have pay a whole person just to come in and keep the plants alive, at least until he or Harley gets the automated plant-care hardware his brain offered as a solution set up and ready to be run by Karen—but the designer guru said she thought it would be a nice touch for a country boy stuck in a concrete jungle, so he had her double her original number of living green things. 

Besides, plants are healthy, right? Clean the air up or some shit? 

“Tony,” says Harley, as close to breathless as Tony’s ever heard him, “this is amazing. It’s cool. It’s really cool.”

Tony clears the lump in his throat. “Workshop’s this way. The other two doors are to a gym and a guest bath. No guest bedroom—made the gym too big for that—but I think there’s, like, a hidden bunkbed-couch-thing that folds out of the wall in front of the TV. Inspired by the Lego movie or something, I don’t know, I wasn’t listening.” This is a blatant lie. Peter made him watch the Lego movie and Tony made him draw up blueprints for the double-decker couch as retaliation, make it collapsible so as to present a challenge, and then Tony may or may not have spent a nightmare-canceled night making it the tech-iest, trickiest hidden furniture ever to be sat on by teenaged butts. It was worth the sighing and _why-_ ing Pepper gave him when she happened across his latest patent. 

There’s a sort of happy crowing sound. Harley’s found the gym. Which is also a full-sized indoor basketball court. 

...So Tony goes overboard sometimes. At least the kids will appreciate it, unlike certain ex-teammates. Also, he bought Happy a home in the Hamptons as part of his contract—that was the condition for mostly-willing spider-kid chauffeuring—this is simply commensurate. 

“I’m heading back up. Lunch at mine, in thirty,” he shouts, waits for confirmation, and disappears before Harley comes back out and sees Tony’s face doing something ridiculous, like an actual Kris Kringle impression. Harley’ll discover the master bedroom with the california-king-sized bed and master bath with sunken jacuzzi in good time. 

He hopes the clothes and shoes in the closet are the right size. He hopes Harley guiltlessly enjoys everything, and asks for more, and doesn’t do that thing the people Tony tries to make happy too-often do, where they say it’s too much, too big, too personal, too- _something,_ and instead of getting happy, are frustrated and angry with him. 

That won’t happen. That won’t happen, right? Not with Harley. _Please, please not with Harley._

He hopes he figures out what to tell Peter. How to tell Peter. 

He’s running out of time.

* * *

 


	3. Darth Vader and the Art of the Gregorian Chant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for every single comment, kudos, and bookmark--I've been kind of overwhelmed by how much attention this fic got, actually, and really hope I don't let anyone down. This exists for fluff and happiness, and will likely border on crack-y at times, plus I'm me so angst will happen. I can't help it. I'm literally writing this as a break from angst but I also can't write anything else so 
> 
> good luck me I guess, better luck to these poor characters
> 
> someone save Peter from himself okay

 

* * *

 

“Hey, kid. Got you something.”

“Whoa, Happy, this is the good stuff! Best shake in town! Thank you so much—wait. Wait, is this about May? Are you—are you _bribing_ me?”

“I don’t need to bribe you, brat. I got enough game on my own.”

“Suuuuure. Well, Imma eat this anyway.”

“You do that. And it’s not about May. She did agree to a date on Sunday, though, so heads up. Don’t expect one every time.”

Peter tries to be cool. Really, really he does—May makes her own choices, and it’s not like he thinks Happy is a _bad_ choice—it’s just. He and May, they’re a team. It’s not fair, he _knows_ it’s not fair, but in Peter’s brain, Ben is still part of that team.

“So...if it’s not a bribe, why the shake? Not that I’m complaining. I just know you, ‘s all.”

Happy looks like he wants to be offended, but Peter’s too right for him to get away with it. He takes a long slurp of his own shake. Tiramisu with that amazing coffee ice cream—Peter can smell it. It’s almost overwhelming his own old-fashioned peanut-butter chocolate malt. 

“We’re celebrating. Today’s my last day driving you, kid.”

The freezing sensation Peter earned by guzzling ice cream too fast spreads from the roof of his mouth all the way to the soles of his feet. “What? Why? ...I don’t want to celebrate that.”

The look Happy gives him is almost visibly fond. “I’m not going anywhere, kid. If I can do things right, you’ll see more of me, not less. Suck it up. And I’m always here for you if you need it. You need a ride and your new guy isn’t available, anything like that—I got you.”

“New—new guy?”

“I got a promotion. Moving up in the world. So yeah, I’m a text away for as long as you need, but it won’t be my job anymore. Spent the past couple days training my replacement.”

Peter is quiet. He doesn’t really know what to say. He’s got brainfreeze and he doesn’t want a new guy and he’s more touched by Happy’s promises to be there if he needs him than is safe to show and he just...feels really weird about Happy and May. 

He doesn’t want things to change. 

“Eat your ice cream, kid.”

So he eats his ice cream.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Mr. Stark.”

“You home safe?”

“You know I am. Like Happy would let me be anything else.” There’s an edge there he expects Tony to pick up on. 

Tony does. “So he told you, huh?”

Peter doesn’t say anything. Focuses on balancing his toothbrush properly, so he can apply toothpaste one-handed. 

“You’re not too happy about this.”

“No, no, it’s fine, Mr. Stark, I’m happy for Happy—shut up, that just happens with a name like his—I don't want to get in his way.” Except he kinda does. 

Mr. Stark is silent for a moment. Peter starts brushing his teeth, thinks about what he’s doing for two seconds, and stops. That’s...that’s probably too rude, brushing his teeth while on the phone with Iron Man. 

“Peter,” Tony says, and Peter’s stomach flips, because his name makes things serious. His mouth is too minty, but he doesn’t dare rinse until the call is over. “You’re not in anyone’s way. And look, things may not work out with Harley, and that’s—we’ll make sure things are still okay. I just want you to give him a chance.”

“‘Course I’m going to give it a chance,” Peter tells him, contrite. It’s not like he has a choice. It’s not like he has a right to the complaints he knows better than to make. 

Tony Stark owes him nothing. Peter owes Tony pretty much everything.

“You know I don’t need a—whatever Happy’s official job was. You know that, Mr. Stark?”

“Maybe you don’t, but I do. My heart can’t handle you on its own, kid. I do lot better knowing it’s not just me on the keep-Spidey-in-one-piece team.”

It’s a surprisingly vulnerable statement, and a revealing one. “Well, there’s you, and May, and my Ned-in-the-chair, and MJ, who is by far the scariest of the lot—”

“No argument there, kid—”

“I have to stay in one piece, it’s too scary to face _any_ of you if I don’t. So I’m good, Mr. Stark. And I’m good with—you said his name was Harley?”

“Harley Keener. He and I go way back. Saved my life a couple times. I trust him, okay?”

“Okay, Mr. Stark. Thanks for talking to me about this.”

“Yep. Working on that whole communication thing. Am I doing it right?”

“You do everything right.”

“Remember that when you meet him tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? Too fast. Too much change, too fast. “Sure thing, Mr. Stark.”

“Get some sleep, kid.” 

“I will if you will, Mr. Stark.”

“Ahh, I miss the days when you were still too much in awe to let all the sass through. Bye, kid. Good work today.”

The call ends before Peter can say goodbye himself. He thinks about this Harley person as he finishes up with the toothbrushing. His brain provides a mental picture that looks an awful lot like the Terminator, except bald, for some reason. He’s read pretty much everything ever written about Iron Man that comes from even semi-credible sources, and a lot that comes from totally-not-credible sources, and he has no idea who Harley Keener could be. Tony’s said himself that he can count the people he trusts on one hand, and Peter’s one of them (that one casual sentence was so overwhelming, filled him up with so much gratitude and gladness that he couldn’t walk normally for two whole days, it was like his shoes bounced by themselves—). It’s hard to imagine someone who goes way back with Tony Stark, who has _saved Tony Stark’s life,_ accepting a job that mostly consists of fielding text messages and driving a teenager around a couple times per week. It was weird enough that Happy did it, and Happy always had a bunch of other, much more important jobs. Peter is Happy’s annoying afterthought.

Will Harley have other jobs? 

Tony wouldn’t hire like a—a SHIELD agent, would he? Would that even be possible?

More and more questions come as Peter tries to fall asleep. When he finally does sleep, he has weird-ass dreams, most of which involve people he knows morphing into a bald Arnold Schwarzenegger and announcing, in rumbling bass, that they’re Harley and they’re _always watching._ When his brain merges Flash Thompson with the Terminator, Darth Vader performing atmospheric Gregorian chant in the background, Peter bolts awake hyperventilating. 

His subconscious really freaks him out sometimes.

 

* * *

 

One more period. He just has to make it through one more period, and then he can go on patrol. Unless he meets the mysterious Harley before patrol. Will a car be waiting out front like when Happy picks him up? Today’s not a lab day. Not a regular Happy-drives-Peter day. 

It would have been nice if someone—Happy, Mr. Stark, Harley himself, literally anyone—told Peter what to expect. 

_“Yo, listen, listen, there’s another one.”_

_“Another what?”_

_“Another SI intern. But this one’s—like the opposite of Parker. Look—damn, c’mere, you gotta see to believe—”_

_“Another fake intern? Is your life really this empty—”_

_“I wouldn’t call this one fake to his face. I heard him talking to Morita when I was turning in registers—he’s brand new to the school and he’s already on probation. ‘Your test scores are impressive, but nothing is impressive enough to allow the least bit of leeway for violent behavior,’ —you shoulda heard Morita. And he goes ‘yes, sir,’ and I swear, chills ran down my back. Just from the way he said it.”_

Peter’s not trying to eavesdrop. He almost never is. Would prefer not to hear everything his classmates say within a hundred-meter radius of wherever he has to be, really and truly—turns out ignorance actually is bliss, 98% of the time. 

“You okay, dude?” 

Peter forces his focus back to what’s immediate. Namely: Ned. “Just...heard something,” he mumbles, and that something must show on his face, because Ned goes immediately protective. 

“Someone talking shit about you? Tell me. I’ll tell MJ.”

Peter can’t help but smile. “It’s nothing. You were saying there’s a new Darth Maul-and-Qi'ra theory—”

Ned accepts the cue with the gracious good humor Peter desperately depends on. Starts right back into what he was saying before,bumping a shoulder warm and grounding into Peter’s, leading the way to their next class. 

Peter tries to stay present, actually participate in the conversation, but there’s this irrational panic lighting up parts of his brain he’s trying to get better at ignoring. Dinosaur-brain. Fight-or-flight brain. _I’m getting anxiety because my most ancient ancestors evolved with really strong tribal instincts that make social rejection feel like a life-or-death thing,_ he instructs himself sternly. This particular mental voice tends to sound distressingly like Captain America PSAs, which is the opposite of helpful. He tries switching mental gears. _Even if I am being replaced, I’m not going to die. It’s fine. I’m fine._

First the thing with Happy, not this. But he’s not getting replaced. He’s not. Probably everything he overheard isn’t true. Even if it is true, and there’s another SI intern, it’s probably a—a real internship, not a cover for semi-mentored superhero stuff. Probably doesn’t have anything to do with Mr. Stark, which would explain why this is the first he’s hearing of it, and he wasn’t even supposed to hear it. Pepper Potts is the CEO of SI, not Mr. Stark, and things like internships are so many levels below CEO stuff that probably neither of them have anything to do with it. Probably not even Happy knows about it. 

Probably. 

What if the new intern is a plant? Judging someone based off of a couple overheard sentences is distinctly uncool, but dude, the guy sounds like a total villain. What if he's a spy? 

Maybe he’ll send Happy a text. Even if he’s not paid to read Peter’s texts anymore, Happy answers like, half of the time now, which he didn’t do the first year Peter knew him—and he was definitely getting paid for it then. It probably has more to do with whatever is going on with Happy and May than Peter being deemed worthy of acknowledgement, but he still doesn’t want to think about Happy and May. 

“Dude, you sure you’re okay?”

...He was supposed to be having a conversation. Peter is the worst friend. He doesn’t deserve Ned. He knows this. “Trying to be,” he says honestly. “Sorry, Ned. I—I want to listen, I just—”

“I got you, dude,” Ned says, but he makes Peter meet his eyes head-on. “I mean, it would be easier if you actually talked to me. So I know what I’m supposed to be getting.”

“Yeah, fair,” Peter admits, sinking into his seat in AP Calc BC. Ned sets up in the desk next to his. They’re the only juniors in this class, and have to stick together even more than usual, because some of the seniors resent them for it. “I heard someone—don’t know who, I didn’t recognize the voice—saying there’s a new SI intern in our school. It’s just—first I’ve heard of it.”

“Huh,” says Ned, nonplussed. “Weird rumor. Most people don’t believe we even have one SI intern, no offense, Peter—”

“I know. I told you about Happy, right? It’s like they’re shaking everything up, but I’m only, like, five percent in the loop, if that, and—”

“You’re Peter Parker.”

It’s not a question, and it’s definitely not a voice he knows, and Peter looks up, and _up,_ and there are _eyes_ and he—he—

“Yeah, this is Peter, I’m Ned, who are you?” Guy in the chair, to the rescue. 

“Harley Keener. We need to talk—“ the bell rings “—after class, then.” 

Peter’s brain short-circuits. It’s like knocking on Liz’s door all over again, all cute and naive in his worry over whether he should hand Liz her corsage or offer to put it on her, and then the Vulture opens the door. Harley Keener is neither a cyborg nor old nor bald and those are really blue eyes. Like really, really blue eyes. 

_Harley Keener Harley Keener fuck that's Harley Keener_ blares through the panic center of Peter’s brain, because that’s what’s important here, not the eyes. Really. Harley Keener has already turned away. He’s about to sit down, but the teacher invites him to come stand at the front of the class and introduce himself, instead. Peter's useless mess of a brain provides a soundtrack of Darth Vader singing Gregorian chant.

Harley Keener is Happy's replacement. Happy’s replacement is in Peter’s calculus class. Happy’s replacement is a _student_ in Peter’s calculus class. 

Happy’s replacement is explaining that he moved up from Tennessee to take on an internship at Stark Industries. 

Oh.

There are goosebumps all up and down Peter’s arms. His spidey sense is going haywire, except it’s gone all weird—maybe isn’t even the spidey thing at all—but his heart rate is exceptionally fast and he's painfully aware of every single nerve in his body and—

Oh no. Harley Keener is already sitting down again, and everyone’s checking him out and pretending they’re not, and Peter’s ears definitely heard an entire introduction, and his brain definitely didn’t process anything beyond _Stark Industries_ and Peter needs this to be one more bizarre dream. He needs to wake up.

It’s not a dream. It’s calculus class. 

The first time Harley fucking Keener gets called on, he gives not only one possible output value for the vector-value function on the board as asked, but lists all possible output values for that function, managing to come off as both efficient and bored. _Great, another Parker,_ someone mumbles, and Peter’s face goes red because his face is stupid like that. 

The first time Peter gets called on, he says the correct function the wrong way. He says it backwards. Because he is 100% dinosaur-brained today, apparently. There’s a delighted guffaw or two from a couple classmates. Beside him, Ned's Concerned Face increases in severity by at least ten degrees. 

_After class, then,_ Harley Keener said, and _after class_ is coming up fast. Ned signals for Peter to keep watch while he texts someone under his desk. Peter goes along with it dutifully, though he’s not sure what that’s about. He’s too busy constructing comebacks for any hypothetical _I’ve replaced you, Tony Stark doesn’t need you anymore, get fucked, Parker_ speeches Harley Keener might make. 

Even in his head, even with time to prepare, his comebacks are pretty pathetic. It’s like he can’t turn on the wit until the Spider-man mask is there to hide everything _Peter_ about him. 

The final bell rings, and Peter packs his bag up as slowly as possible. Exactly opposite of his usual mad dash for freedom. Ned hangs back with him, tracing anxiety between Peter and Harley with narrowed eyes. 

They’re the only ones left in the classroom by the time Peter drags his backpack over his shoulder. Harley Keener still stands by the door, where he’s waited for a good minute and a half already. 

“You know a good place to talk? Probably best if we’re not overheard. I’ve got a car here, if you want to go with that.” He sounds like he's trying really, really hard to be patient and reasonable. 

“No riding in cars with strangers,” Ned says immediately. “MJ’s on her way here, Peter.”

So that’s who Ned was texting. 

Harley frowns. On most people a frown makes the face less pleasant, but because the universe is screwing Peter over today, it just makes Harley look dangerous. Attractively dangerous. “Tony said he told you,” he says. “You miss a memo, Parker?”

“ _Tony_ said he and Harley Keener go way back,” Peter says, trying really hard not to show how uncomfortable it feels to call Mr. Stark by his first name like that. “You’re too young to go way anything.”

“Says the boy I’ve been hired to babysit,” Harley fires back lazily, mouth quirking like he’s one more Captain Obvious comment away from full-on mocking. “I can see how it would come as a shock, though. You probably thought you were the original little prodigy.”

That would sting a hell of a lot less if it wasn’t so true. 

“Peter’s, like, Iron Man’s personal intern,” Ned cuts in loyally. “What do you want, anyway?”

“Somewhere secure to talk, to start with—”

“Those as my losers,” announces MJ, appearing in the doorway like an avenging angel. “What’s your deal, New Kid? Aren’t you on probation?”

It’s the first time Peter’s seen Harley look anything less than coolly cocksure, and he falls in love with MJ all over for it. Which hurts, of course, but it’s so familiar a hurt at this point that it’s equal parts comforting and painful. 

“I literally just want to talk. Nothing I have said or done has indicated any other motive. Y’all are watching me like I pulled knives or something, and honestly: what the fuck? And who are you?”

“I’m the angry-as-fuck ex,” MJ says, stalking over to hook an arm through Peter’s elbow. “Peter’s ex, but it’s generally everyone else I’m angry at. Should I be angry at you?”

“Nope. Unless Peter doesn’t talk to people? This one of those superdiva don’t-approach-the-star things or...? Tony made it sound like you were cool, Parker, which left me seriously unprepared for...this.”

MJ narrows her eyes at him. “You got a name?”

Peter is 95% sure MJ knows everything anyone in school has learned or exaggerated about Harley Keener, plus everything available online, very much including his name. 

Harley Keener seems to thinks so, too, because he looks her over for a calculating couple of seconds, then says: “to you, Bassanio.”

Peter doesn’t get it.

“I don’t get it,” Ned says. Peter grins at him. 

MJ obviously does. One eyebrow goes up, and she looks almost...accepting. It’s a weird look on her. “Hmm,” she hums, like everyone should get something significant from that alone, then: “try not to lose this one, Portia Parker.” 

She kisses Peter on the cheek, swats him on the head with the copy of _The Merchant of Venice_ in her other hand, and leaves him to the mercies of Harley fucking Keener, aka Bassanio.

“I’m going to have to re-read Merchant of Venice to get that reference, aren’t I,” Ned groans. Keener looks smug. Peter wonders if this day can make him feel any stupider. 

He really shouldn’t have dared the universe that way. 

* * *

 

 


	4. Peter Parker & coffee & the Boy Who Probably Won't be Punted Off Brooklyn Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> having a really rough week. Hopefully the chapter still turned out okay. Thank you so much for supporting this story. <3

 

* * *

 

In the end they walk to the car—it’s one of Mr. Stark’s cars, and Peter refuses to think of it as Keener’s—and Peter reassures a reluctant Ned that actually, he did know that he’d be meeting Happy’s replacement today, and also that Happy’s replacement was Harley Keener. He just didn’t expect Harley Keener to be seventeen. 

“Are you a millennial in a silicone mask, or, like, really good stage makeup?” Ned asks Harley. “You’re not really a senior in high school, are you? How is this even legal? Don’t you have to be eighteen to drive professionally?”

“Look, I haven’t read the entire legal code, but I’m pretty sure Stark’s lawyers have—take it up with them,” Harley says. Peter and his friends are visibly wearing on him, which cheers Peter up significantly. “And I’ll be eighteen in a matter of weeks. Anyone else you need to check in with before you’re allowed to talk to a boy, Parker? Should I call Aunt May?”

_Not fair. Really super uncool, Mr. Stark._ Harley Keener has most definitely not earned the _Call Aunt May_ card. Still... “Go for it,” Peter says. “Don’t blame me if you get grilled on Staying Safe, though. Proper protection and all that. Sex and driving both. Maybe cooking, too--”

“Ahh, she totally would,” Ned says, shuddering. “Don’t do it, Harley. I don’t know you, but I don’t wish that on you. Okay. See you tomorrow, Peter.”

“ _Finally,_ ” groans Harley. He looks like he’s had a long day, which makes Peter feel even better. His brain is even starting to work mostly-normally again. So long as he carefully avoids looking at the eyes, and maybe also the very nice muscles on the upper arms, he thinks he can get through whatever conversation Harley Keener is so determined to have.

“I need coffee,” Harley says, almost plaintively, as he pulls on his seatbelt. “Hey cool AI person, where’s the nearest Tony-approved coffee shop? Yeah, yeah that looks good. Take us there.”

Peter is self-aware enough to admit that he’s a little jealous of the entirely unconscious confidence of Harley Keener’s driving. He seems mildly annoyed by Midtown traffic, but has no trouble at all navigating it. 

“All right, Parker,” he says, shifting in his seat so he can tug a folded sheet of notebook paper out of a back pocket, “let’s get shit out of the way. I wrote the important points there, take a look. I actually do want this to work out, so—once you’ve read that, ask away.”

Feeling unsettled in a whole new way—is Harley patronizing him? Setting him up for further embarrassment?—Peter cautiously unfolds the paper. There’s a list written neatly in pencil—looks like the handlettering font architects use, Peter messed around with it a bit when he went through a dream-house-designing stage around age eleven—and it starts with a statement that shouldn’t be quite as jolting as it is. 

 

_-Nice to meet you, Spider-man._

 

Harley’s got eyes on the road, but Peter still thinks he catches the look of alarm he sends his way. Of course the guy hired to be Spider-man’s point guy would know that Spider-man and Peter Parker are the same person. Obviously. Still tastes sour—Spider-man is _his_ secret to (not) tell. 

 

_-This job borders on stalker-territory. Will do my best to not be a stalker._

_-Snitching is not my m.o., HOWEVER:_

_-Tony is the boss_

_-I will absolutely tell Tony everything the contract I signed says he needs to know_

_-Don’t beg me not to, that’s awkward_

_-other than that, tell me when you don’t like something, chances are I can change it_

_-you do you(r job), I do my thing, we don’t kill each other, you’re alive and I’m paid for keeping you alive, this is the best plan_

_-QUESTION TIME_

 

“Uh,” says Peter. The look Harley flashes him clearly expresses _that all you got?_ but he’s also busy switching lanes without there really being enough time to switch because Karen just announced a right-hand turn. 

Which is another thing that stings: Karen is _his._ Mr. Stark made her for him, for Peter, and she’s up there with Ned and MJ on Peter’s favorite people list, inasmuch as an AI can be on such a list—wait. Maybe Mr. Stark didn’t design Karen for Peter. Maybe he made her for _Keener._

“If you’ve really got no questions, that’s cool and all,” Keener says, easing into the tiny alleyway parking lot behind his chosen coffee shop like the space he’s taking the car through isn’t only inches larger than the car. Never even comes close to scraping the brick walls like Peter definitely would. Jerk. “You should know this is a one-time deal, though. No AMAs whenever you decide I’m good enough to talk to. Take this chance or lose it.”

“How long have you had Karen?” Peter blurts.

Harley blinks. “Wow, he speaks—who’s Karen?”

_Karen is my prefered name,_ Karen chimes happily. Because she’s the absolute best. 

“The AI? Oh. Sorry, Karen, Tony even mentioned that, sorry. I won’t forget again. Forgive me?”

Well fuck. Peter can’t keep judging Harley as harshly as he wants to if he talks to Karen like that. The mixed signals here are as utterly unfair as how good Harley’s hands look, long fingers light on the wheel and stick as he parks. 

“Careful opening your door there, I squeezed us in kinda tight—no choice, sorry,” says Keener. Another apology. It feels out-of-character to Peter, though he hasn’t really known this dude long enough to be thinking that. _He’s trying,_ he thinks, sliding painstakingly through the very few inches his car door to open without scraping brick. _He said he wants to make this work._

Right. Right, Peter will give this more of a shot. He promised Mr. Stark he would. 

He gets the door shut, scrape-and-ding free. “Karen’s programmed into my suit,” he offers. “And a bunch of other tech Mr. Stark’s given me since then, but the suit is where I met her. She’s like...my battle buddy.”

“Cool,” says Harley, and with the various shades of sarcastic Peter’s heard from him so far, he’s surprised not to detect any at all. “Um, you asked how long I’ve had her? About three days I guess? She came with the StarkPhone that’s part of my contract.”

Peter feels kind of dumb over how much better that makes him feel. It’s not like Karen would mean any less to him if it turned out Harley Keener had been working with her since whenever _way back_ means, it’s just—it’s irrational. But he feels better. If Keener didn’t get Karen until he started this job, Karen is still _Peter’s._ Keener has her because he is, ridiculously, also kind of Peter’s. 

Wow. He’s not going to think any further in that direction.

“Let’s, um, we can make this AMA thing reciprocal, if you want.” Keener’s holding the cafe door for him. It would be weird not to just walk through. Ned and Peter hold doors for each other all the time. And whomever else might be near a door at the same time as them. The smart thing is just to casually walk through, right? 

Right. 

“Sure,” Keener says, following Peter into coffee-fragrant air, a bit of that mocking drawl creeping back into his voice. “Seems like you’re the one getting blindsided by fully arranged, pre-established conditions here, but if something comes up that I don’t already know, I’ll ask away.”

It’s like every time Peter determines to stop thinking negatively and give this a better chance, Keener makes it clear just how dumb Peter’s being. It’s almost like the universe is sending him a message. _Harley Keener is a giant asshole,_ the universe is whispering to him. _Fate made him ridiculously attractive to make everyone else less likely to punt him off a bridge for being an absolute shit._ You can’t punt someone who looks at you with those eyes. 

Probably. Jury’s out, honestly.

Peter orders the biggest, sweetest, most calorie-dense dessert-in-a-cup coffee on the menu. And a giant chocolate-chocolate-chip muffin. He needs it. 

Keener orders an Americano. No cream, no sugar. Because of course he does. He and Mr. Stark probably drink bitter black coffee together nonstop, do ridiculous numbers of espresso shots together, occasionally pausing to snark about weaklings who like _flavor_.Flavor that masks the taste of black, bitter, over-roasted _pain_.

Peter spoons burnt-sugar-crusted, dulce-de-leche-drizzled whipped cream into his mouth a little spitefully. 

“Good?” Blast Keener and his stupidly-handsome eyebrow. 

“ _Yes._ ”

There are a couple awkward (all around), sugar-crunching (Peter only) moments, then Keener puts his coffee down, runs his hand through hair that he can apparently do that to and still have it look like he paid someone to artfully tousle each individual curl, and sighs. 

“Okay, I gotta fix this,” he mumbles. Then, louder: “uh, you got a preference over what I call you? Peter? Parker? Portia?”

“...Peter’s fine.”

“Okay then. I’m—I always do this, okay, it’s not personal. I say stuff and people feel bad. It’s not exactly...intentional, at least not all of it, but I can reel it in. Shoulda kept it reeled in. It’s not like it doesn’t make sense for you to be confused. Or wary. I wouldn’t have a job if there wasn’t good reason for the Overprotect Peter Parker Squad.”

Peter waits for the bait-and-switch. Or the _I’m a jerk now I’m not now I am again_ routine, because even after everything, that first label feels a little harsh. 

“Tony didn’t tell you anything about me, did he.”

“Other than your name, and that he—he trusts you, no. I should have paid more attention to that second one, I guess.” 

“Trust is earned,” Harley says, and there’s something hard there, something uncompromising. It’s nothing against Peter, though, he knows that instinctively. “It’s not a right. No one’s entitled to it, especially not secondhand. It’s gonna take time for us to trust each other. I was hoping—I was kind of hoping to get things started off in the right way, though, with that—” he gestures at the folded square of notebook paper still caught in Peter’s hand. It’s got a splash of coffee and cream on it, Peter notices suddenly. He grabs a napkin to try to fix that. “Kinda screwed things up in other ways, I guess, but yeah. I know I’m not what you expected.”

The way he says it, the way _expected_ breaks with tiny hairline fractures of doubt and self-censure, hits Peter harder than anything else Harley Keener has said or done. He knows—he knows the weight of expectations. Of Tony Stark’s expectations, in particular. Has done things like _getting a ferry full of people sliced in half_ desperately trying to hold that weight.

“Not like I made the best first impression either,” he tries, somewhere between wary and wry. “Not a diva, I promise.”

“Nah, just a superhero,” Harley says, and his mouth tips up in just enough of a smile to make Peter's eyes catch on his mouth. “I haven’t figured out what to think of the fact that I’m your bodyguard, by the way. Seems like it should be the other way around?”

“It should be,” Peter agrees, just a little bit mutinously. Then, suddenly uncertain, “Unless you’re—like me?”

“If you’re asking if I’m a mutant or a super-something, nope. Regular old human here.”

“That’s the thing," Peter hisses, activating the sound frequency app on his phone that will keep their conversation private and putting the phone down on the table between them. "I can take hits that would end you, and keep right on fighting, and back to normal a few hours later. Don’t take it personally, because it really isn’t, but I think you’d be more hindrance than help in the kind of fight where I’d need back-up.”

“Tony’s a regular old human too. You turn down Iron Man back-up?”

“The only part of that sentence I agree with is _old._ You comparing yourself to Iron Man?”

Harley snorts a laugh, looking surprised to be feeling entertained. “I've helped him out in fights before, you know. As a scrawny little eleven-year-old, too. It’s not always about muscle. Or armor. Not arguing that those don’t help, though.”

“Okay, pegging that story for the AMA, if you haven’t canceled it—but, listen, you’re taking Happy’s job—he just drove me around and ignored my text messages. So, like, stick with that and we’re good, right?”

“I can do the ignoring text messages for sure.”

“Noooo,” is Peter’s oh-so-eloquently-moaned response to that, followed by a giant bite of muffin. _Save me, chocolate gods._ "Okay, question then. Do you have—your internship, is it just—?” He gestures awkwardly between them, “—or...?"

"Am I actually doing R&D stuff for SI? Yeah. Well, for Tony, anyway. So far everything he's given me to look at is stuff he's working on himself, I think. Nanotech stuff. I need to be able to repair your suits."

Well that’s something Happy definitely didn’t do. 

That’s…that’s what Mr. Stark does. What he and Peter work on together, sometimes. Worked on together. Sounds like that’s not going to happen anymore. 

“Look, Tony’s not going to let me mess up your suits—”

“I’m not worried about that—”

“What _are_ you worried about?“

_That Mr. Stark doesn’t trust me to take care of myself. That he needed someone smarter than me to develop nanotech with. That he doesn’t want me around anymore._ “That you’re going to hate your job,” he says, which is also true. “Or me. Or both.”

“Uh, no, this is the kind of job I would laugh at myself for daring to dream of. Except I’m living it and it’s better than anything I’ve ever dreamed, and I’ve got the ambition and imagination to dream up some pretty great stuff. Stuff Tony has incorporated into his own tech, for example. And, uh, no, definitely don’t hate you.”

There’s something in those words, in the way pupils swallow up irises and long fingers press denim into knees and there’s more breath in _you_ than any other word that makes Peter shiver, shiver and wonder-- _No. No. Don't be an idiot, Parker._

“Oh,” he says, a little blankly. “Um. This—” he holds up Harley’s list of perfectly hand-lettered ground rules. “Works for me. Works both ways, I mean. What you said—what you put here about letting you know if I don’t like something, and you can maybe change it—same, dude. I don’t want to mess up your dream job. I don’t want a babysitter, but hey, if it makes Mr. Stark happy, right? I don’t want to screw things up.” He mostly means it. He’s still got Ned on his side—he can break free if he has to. 

Harley settles, jaw and neck and shoulders easing into lines Peter hasn’t seen on him yet, softer lines that make him look…even better. It’s terribly, terribly unfair. “Well, you know I don’t have a problem saying what I think,” he says, grin almost—almost _hopeful_. “So we good, Parker? Second chance off to the right start?”

The hand Peter takes is strong and calloused and hot against his skin, and there’s that _jolt_ again, that rush of energy going skin-muscle-bone and setting nerves sparking from palm to shoulder to something gone all tight and trembly right in the very center of him. Peter’s throat closes and his jaw goes tight and all he can do is hold on tight and nod with confidence he’s going to damn well fake until it’s real. 

“Good,” Harley says, and sits back a bit, glancing over Peter’s muffin and coffee like he’s checking how long he’ll have to wait for Peter to eat it. Peter crams as much chocolate as he can manage into his mouth with a hand that’s still bewilderingly tingly from touching Harley’s. “Hey, I do have a question for you—this nerd school always give this much homework? I have more due tomorrow than I got in a week at my old school—”

Peter stares at him around a mouthful of too much muffin. “Wha’, really?”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Harley groans, looking down at his stuffed-full backpack in despair. “Well shit.”

Peter swallows. Gulps down the last of his coffee. The cream and syrups and what little actual coffee was in there have all melted together, and it’s absolutely delicious. “You get used to it.”

“I guess,” Harley says, with the kind of enthusiasm Peter used to have for fitness tests in gym class on days he’d forgotten to use his inhaler.He contemplates his fate while while Peter polishes off the remaining corner of chocolate-chocolate chip goodness.“Ready to go?”

“Sure—go where, though?”

Harley shrugs. “Your place, Tony’s place, wherever you want to start your patrol from in Queens—your call. The sooner we get there, the sooner I get started on Mount Doom, there.” Another resigned look at the overflowing backpack.

Peter’s all twisted up in all the questions he isn’t willing to ask. Harley’s stressing about homework. Harley’s just a kid, he’s just like Peter—only replace being Spider-man with being responsible for Spider-man’s _life_. 

Because maybe Mr. Stark doesn’t think Peter is responsible enough to be trusted with his own life. 

_What did I do?_

Things have been so much better since everything with the Vulture. Since Peter passed the ‘join the Avengers’ test, and was invited along a few Avengers missions anyway. Since Mr. Stark seemed to care about _Peter_ , beyond making sure Spider-man didn’t kill himself or anyone else. He thought he’d—earned something, _learned_ something, proved something—

“You know, I might as well start my patrol from here,” he says. Grabs his phone, shuts off the sound-scrambling app, jams it in his pocket. “Got everything I need in my bag. I’ll web home. Uh—thanks, for this. See you tomorrow?”

Harley’s lines have gone all tight again, shoulders up, eyes sharp. “Drop me a voicemail,” is all he says, light and slightly tentative, like he’s trying to ease Peter’s sudden tension with a joke—but it just stings. 

Peter leaves. Walks too fast, doubts too much, feels way too many contrasting things. 

He’ll deal with it all later. Right now, Spider-man’s got a date—with Queens. 

 

* * *

 


	5. ShankCat Strikes First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for all the enthusiasm!! It means so so much for me to get kudos and comments. Especially comments, you have no idea how much I treasure each one, even if I really struggle to get around to answering them. Life is crazy intense for me right now--I'm a teacher, I'm a parent, it's the end of the school year, you can probably deduce the rest--and I don't know how quickly I'll be able to update. I'll do my best. I love writing this and am amazed by how positive and welcoming this fandom is turning out to be. Thank you to every one of you for being so incredibly lovely.

 

* * *

 

“So? How’d it go?”

The first three answers to spring from Harley’s irreverent brain to the stupid-quick tip of his tongue have to be summarily discarded. He’s a professional. He’s going to be professional about this. 

“We made contact,” he goes with. Regrets it immediately, because Tony’s mouth is doing that thing where he’s trying to be slightly less of an asshole by mocking only on the _inside._

“That good, huh. What’d you say to turn him off?”

“I didn’t—” _You probably thought you were the original little prodigy. You’re the one getting blindsided. Superdiva._ “Uh. Well. He’s a superhero, right? Sticks and stones can’t even break him? ‘Words are but crumbs’ and all that.”

Amusement slides right off Tony’s face, pools as guilt in Harley’s gut. “Kid. Harley…shit. I should have warned him.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Harley bites back, stung. “His face when I said my name? Don’t know what you said, what he was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t _me._ ”

“Hey, no, even if he wasn’t expecting you, there's nothing bad about you—”

“Tell your spider-kid that.”

For a moment Tony just looks at him, lots going on behind those sharp, dark eyes—none of it anything Harley can read. 

He feels awful. Day One, and he’s got a whole stack of failures. Spider-man’s on patrol right now, Karen confirmed that—and nothing else. The reports in are strictly voluntary, and Peter Parker’s not volunteering. Unless something goes wrong enough for an override protocol, Harley will be sitting around doing a whole lot of homework and an equal amount of _nothing_. In a fucking penthouse that’s his because he was so sure he could do infinitely better than _nothing._

No. Nope, he’s going to change this. Harley Keener doesn’t fucking _give up._ He lifts his chin right back up, meets Tony’s disappointment head-on. 

Except Tony doesn’t look disappointed. Not even a little bit. “There you are,” he says, all warm and fond and—and _proud._ “C’mon, punk. I made pappardelle. Bottled sauce, but I’ll have you know it is the world’s finest, shipped directly from the manufacturers in Italy. Shouldn’t have told you it’s bottled, actually, you’d never be able to guess. Of course you’d probably prefer that canned abomination—there’s one where the so-called pasta is shaped like my helmet—”

“Spaghettios? Those are the _shit._ ”

“Drop the _the_ and you’re on to something,” Tony says dryly. They’re in Tony’s kitchen already, and it’s stopped feeling false to keep his head high. “You got any homework?”

“Gahh, yes,” Harley moans. He’d finished two assignments in the cafe while working up the courage to drive to his new home in defeat. Knocked out a 500 word essay and two pages of chemistry while he procrastinated—hardly making a dent in all that needed to be done. “I only attended one class today but a helpful _guidance counselor_ made sure I had the texts and assignments for _every class in the freaking school._ Okay maybe not all of them, maybe even just the ones I signed up for, but you know? I bet the average university experience has nothing on this—”

“So you like it,” Tony says, pleased. “It’s a fine school. Great grad stats. You still shooting for MIT?”

“Yeah, yeah, I like it,” Harley confesses, but only because he doesn’t want to get into the topic of MIT. He wants it too much. Has sabotaged his own chances too much. 

Tony lets the subject drop. It’s another way he’s changed recently—a symptom of softness, sensitivity, _something._ It freaks Harley out a little bit, even when he directly benefits from it. 

The pappardelle—which is actually just fat-flat spaghetti, and Harley will forever refer to it as such just to see Tony’s brows shoot up in righteous offense—is really good. Turns out that when Tony said he made it, he literally _made_ it. From, like, flour and eggs and oil, all of which now coat more than half of his kitchen—and a high-tech pasta-rolling machine that is way niftier than Harley will ever admit. He’s going to convince Tony to let him use it. He’s going to treat Abby to noodles he _made with his own two hands_ when she visits. Who knew that was a thing you could make? 

He introduces Tony to a couple of his favorite nerdy podcasts while they de-pasta the kitchen, and by the time he’s saying goodnight/taunting Tony about being old and in obvious need of beauty sleep—he’s more comfortable in his own skin than he’s been since he agreed to come to New York.

 

* * *

 

_HK: how’s patrol so far?_

Karen doesn’t display the text until Peter’s taking a breather on a rooftop, enjoying the view and chugging a Korean sports drink he and Ned have gotten mildly addicted to lately. A stroke of her usual genius, as it turns out, because the supposedly-benign words send all sorts of anxieties spinning. 

There’s happy-surprise and defensive-suspicion and memory-pictures of hands-hair-shoulders-voice- _eyes_ so vivid Peter’s heart speeds up like Harley’s sitting on this roof next to him, and smeared over all of that like peanut butter on toast is the sticky panic of _oh no I need to answer him shit help fuck_. 

Choosing words and fitting them into coherent sentences isn’t something he’s got the time or emotional support (Ned) for, so tells Karen to bring up some highlight stills from tonight’s footage, selects five, and sends them to Harley Keener. 

There’s a mid-action shot as he swoops down on a purse-snatcher, fired webs a half-second from connecting. A couple panoramas of city-at-sunset from the kind of angles you mostly see from drones. A swinging-away shot of a middle-aged daughter tearfully hugging her dealing-with-late-stage-Alzheimer’s mother, whom Peter had found cheerful-but-confused as she wandered through traffic. She’d asked him where he got his outfit—the mother, not the daughter—wanted one of her own. (Karen had already found and ordered a Spider-man-themed night shirt in the appropriate size—she probably wouldn’t remember, but the product reviews agreed that the material was high quality and wonderfully soft.) 

The picture Harley Keener immediately responds to, however—

_HK: dude that cat wants to shank you. lookit his face did he do it or_

_HK: i love ShankCat how is he so cute_

_Maybe he’s my backup blade_ Peter tells Karen to text back, after a good twenty seconds of staring and sputtering. _maybe I’m training him to shank OTHERS_

_HK: nah dude he’s looking directly into your lenses and he hungers for your death. Please tell me you meet this legend on the regular_

“Text him that I hope I never meet that cat again and if he doesn’t know how to knit up the suit, he’s going to learn real soon,” Peter grumbles, glancing down at the gashes ShankCat did, indeed, shank through million-dollar micro-wired textile. 

_HK: he DID IT OMG ShankCat you absolute legend_

_HK: wait tho u ok or_

_SM: I mean I get stabbed, shot, bones dislocated etc often enough to keep this in perspective but also: pretty sure this hurt worse than some of those_

And before Harley can give his two cents on _that:_

_SM: how’s the hw_

_HK: vanquished. 50% vanquished. me too but_

_HK: u havent even started have u_

_HK: ...what r u gonna do. it’s <40 minutes to tomorrow_

_SM: i get most of my stuff done during class and lunch break and stuff_

_SM: gotta do calc and an essay though_

_HK: want pics of calc? that one I finished_

Guilt over even considering cheating makes his next sip of energy drink extra-sour. Then there’s the happy-fizzy feeling over Keener offering, and that—he’s not going to think about that. 

_SM: thanks dude, i’ll let you know if i need it_

_SM: gonna start home now. Leaves me some time to deal with anything that comes up along the way_

_HK: if u see ShankCat i need more pics_

It’s a pretty quiet trek home. A group of maybe-college-kids cheers and hollers at him when he swings by, and he pauses obligingly for a few selfies, dangling upside-down just beyond drunken-arm-reach. He notices a woman glancing over her shoulder every few seconds at a man walking (following? Peter isn’t sure, and, it seems, neither is she—) a few steps behind her. She’s made a fist with house-keys spiked out between clenched fingers, so he hops down a couple meters away, asks if she’s like an escort. 

She accepts. Thirty seconds later the man has crossed to the other side of the road, Peter’s spidey-senses have chilled out considerably, and he and his temporary walking companion have started a lively discussion comparing green teas, because he has lucked into the presence of an actual connoisseur and green tea is delicious. She leaves him with addresses for two authentic tea shops she recommends, one Chinese and Japanese, and he is 100% sincere when he gives his sincere thanks and enthusiastic promise to check them both out. He texts Harley a picture of the addresses, written in three languages, with the note _people are awesome, she wrote this like nbd?? can you imagine knowing all those languages. bet the tea is awesome too_ and then he gets all anxious about that sentence between so incredibly sappy and not even a little bit witty but it can’t be fixed. He wonders about asking Harley to drive them tea-tasting, one day. If that’s something it’s okay to ask. Can Spider-man’s bodyguard-person be asked along on a tea-tasting? Would that be going too far?

Could his brain please stop imagining Harley’s hands cradling tiny ceramic teacups?

He’ll ask MJ. She likes tea. 

Still, it’s natural as anything to give May a big hug and a bigger smile as soon as he gets home, and it makes her so happy his smile just grows and his cheeks are actually aching a little. So is his heart. Good patrols, good days—he will never, ever take these things for granted. 

He eats fast (third dinner—it’s annoying how much he needs to eat, but he tonight he doesn’t mind, he’s texting Ned about ShankCat and they’re both cracking up hard) and showers fasts and blitzes through calculus and tumbles into bed with his mask on, dictating an essay to Karen. It’s just a first draft due tomorrow, and he finished everything else during school hours, and Karen has amazing auto-complete suggestions that are _probably_ cheating but also…he has to be up in five hours. So. 

He barely gets the mask off before sleep claims him, Karen’s _sweet dreams, Peter_ and Keener’s _sleep time, see you too soon_ as warm as the comforter he’s cocooned in.

* * *

 


	6. Harley Keener and the Fantastic Second Start

 

* * *

 

            Harley may be operating on less than two hours of sleep, but his homework is done, his outfit is killer, and Peter Parker (Spider-man!! Harley spent hours _texting Spider-man!_ ) sounded genuinely pleasant when they said goodnight. Also two hours is enough for a full REM cycle, right? Basically, he’s set. It’s going to be a good day.

            Yesterday he walked into Midtown Tech determined to project ‘definitely nonviolent and totally harmless nerd of extreme academic potential’. Total fail when if came to Peter and the Overprotection Squad; good enough for Morita, though, and that was Priority No. 1. Today is a little different. Today is about protecting _himself._

            Bullies hone in on Harley like hornets on hawaiian pizza. Always have, and once he stopped being helpless, he found himself in a whole new world of trouble: adults who side with bullies. A little boy with big sad eyes and a busted lip usually garnered pity, if not protection; a rangy teenager with bloody knuckles and a mean mouth got neither. Then he got outed, and the running consensus in his lovely backwater red-country town is that if you’ve got the nerve to be gay, you’re pretty much asking for whatever comes next. Some of the teachers at his school had the frankly incredible reaction of thinking they were _helping_ him—like maybe if they looked the other way, the football team would knock the gay right out of Harley, and he’d turn out better in the end. 

            Whatever. Rose Hill’s behind him, he’s moved about a billion levels up in the world, and he’s gonna stay on top if it kills him. It’ll be a fine balance, using the rumors already flying to scare petty bullies away without presenting himself as a challenger to the big-time bullies—he wishes he knew more about how things work at Midtown Tech, had a little more data going in. Things are different in New York City—about as different from Rose Hill as he can get without leaving the country, he thinks—but bullies exist everywhere, and the rules of who gets bullied probably don’t change much. If he ends up eating a few punches, he’ll live. He always does. Harley Keener has a 100% survival rate for shitty days. Today, though—today is going to be a _fantastic_ day.

            Not even Tony Stark emerging from another all-night engineering/pretending-emotions-don’t-exist bender looking like he’s lost a battle against six of his own suits can put a damper on things: Harley prepared for this.

            “Have a seat, iron-boss,” he says, and it works because Tony is instinctively following the sent of coffee and the coffee is hot and ready and most easily accessed by sitting down in front of it. Harley sets a plate of hot breakfast beside it with a flourish. Banana pancakes with secret-recipe buttermilk syrup and crispy bacon: chef’s special at Mom’s diner, and some people drive hours out of their way just to eat it. No way Tony will resist.

            “Mmm,” grumbles Tony. Swallows half a mug of coffee in the time civilized people take a single sip. “Why are you in my house? You have your own house. Wait. You can cook?” A bite. “You _can_. Oh hell, can you cook. I don’t know how you got in and I don’t care. I’m eating this.”

            Yes, it’s a perfect day.

 

* * *

 

 

           

            Flash Thompson’s not sure what to expect when he gets to school. He’s in dozens of group chats, and all of them discussed the transfer student at some point last night. Mostly because Flash brought him up, but it’s not like no one else wanted to talk about it.

            There are several reasons the transfer student is noteworthy:

  1. Midtown Tech doesn’t take mid-semester transfers.
  2. He’s not from New York.
  3. He interns at Stark Industries. Or “interns” at “Stark Industries”. Either way: Flash can use this.
  4. He drives an _amazing_ car.
  5. He’s already on probation. Easy prey, if it comes to that.
  6. He showed up Parker in BC Calc.
  7. Rumor has it he’s nice to look at.



           

            Rumor was wrong. No, not wrong, Flash thinks, making a conscious effort to close his mouth, be casual: understated. Criminally understated. Harley Keener is walking down the hall wearing designer jeans _Flash_ can’t afford and blue flannel that brings out incredibly gorgeous eyes and a beat-up leather jacket Flash wants around his own shoulders so badly he’ll genuinely swoon if he doesn’t get it together in the next two seconds.

            No. No, this can’t happen. Flash can’t fall in love. Harley Keener may be the key to finally, _finally_ getting one up on Parker, and Flash will not jeopardize that.

            Not even for the most attractive real-life, non-celebrity person he’s ever seen.

            Probably.

            Then he sees the shoes.

            “How,” he breathes, and it’s quiet and wasn’t meant to be voiced at all but Keener is only yards away—“how did you get those?”

            If he wasn’t distracted by the shoes, he’d probably die from being leveled by one intent, curious gaze from those eyes.

            “You talking to me?”

            “Y-yeah,” Flash says, straightening up from his careful lean against the lockers, working for every drop of suave he’s ever practiced in front of a mirror. “Your shoes. How’d you get those?”

            Keener looks down at his limited-edition custom Spider-man high-top converse. Looks up. “They were in my closet,” he says, like it is a perfectly normal thing to own shoes Flash Thompson begged his father for and his father’s personal shopper was proud to announce they got on the wait-list for. Which is as close as Flash has come to touching those shoes, and Harley Keener is just. Walking in them. Down a _school hallway._ Does Keener know the sorts of things that have touched the linoleum he’s treading on soles Flash has imagined kissing? _Does he know?_

            Flash makes a sound he will never, ever admit is a whimper.

            Keener quirks and eyebrow at him, looking amused. “Spider-man fan?”

            “Duh,” manages Flash, and that amused lilt of lips turns into an actual smile. Keener sticks out a hand.

            “I’m Harley.”

            “Flash,” says Flash. He’ll pretend it came out full of swagger. It takes some effort, but he can pretend. They shake hands, like that’s something people just _do_ in high school hallways while wearing converse Flash would trade a car for, but then again—Keener already has the nicest car in the school parking lot, doesn’t he?

            It’s not _fair._

            “Hey, uh, I’m trying to find 203B—I found 203, but whatever the B means, it doesn’t mean it’s next to 203–mind helping me out?”

            “Oh,” says Flash. “Oh, uh, yeah. 203B—B means basement. That’s where they stick the literature courses, ‘cause we’re all about STEM, I guess? And yeah, of course. I’m actually headed there myself—”

            “You have AP lit first period?”

            “I do,” says Flash, and he’s not getting any suaver. He’s breathing too fast to speak normally. Fuck. _Fuck._ “Let’s go?”

            “Yeah, thanks, man, I had no idea where to look for B after checking the 2nd floor—”

            “No problem. So, that Mustang—”

            “That’s mine, yeah. Custom. Done a lot of the work myself. You like cars?”

            “Yes,” says Flash faintly. “Yes, I do.”

            “Awesome,” says Keener. Flash risks a look at him, and he’s smiling a little—it almost looks hesitant. “We should get along great, then.”

            “Hey, listen,” Flash tries, heartened enough by that smile to rally. “I know you’re new—you gotta take in the lay of land here. Who to know, who to avoid, all of that. I can help, if you want.”

            Keener’s been tracking the way people look at them as they walk past, the nods Flash gets, how no one gets in their way. Maybe, just this once, Flash’s hard work will pay off.

            “Yep,” says Keener, and there’s something sardonic about the nod, but it’s also decisive. And damn, this boy is hot. “Taking you up on that. Impart your knowledge. I’ll show you around my car, later, if that’s an exchange that works for you.”

            Flash really shouldn’t be thinking about any meanings for that phrase other than popping the hood and checking out the engine, appreciating the custom rims and going over all the specs, but he definitely, definitely is. They’ve reached 203B, and this time, Flash is the one to extend a hand to shake. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Keener.”

            Peter Parker looking up from his desk to take in their clasped hands, wide-eyed shock shading into horror, makes what is shaping up to be the best move of Flash Thompson’s incredibly frustrating high school career even _sweeter._

* * *

 


	7. in your dreams, Lightning McQueen

* * *

_No,_ pleads Peter, watching Harley smile at Flash, charming and handsome and clearly pleased with himself— _please, please no._

He’s not surprised Harley’s in his class. He’s probably in most of his classes—Mr. Stark doesn’t do things by halves. Harley being a grade ahead doesn’t help—Peter’s taking all AP courses, and most of his classmates are seniors. He _is_ surprised to see Harley smiling at Flash, warm and genuine as far as Peter can tell—but when he asks himself why he’s surprised, he comes up flat. Harley has no reason to dislike Flash. And Flash, smiling and laughing and being sickeningly accommodating, seems absolutely determined to keep it that way. Even when Harley approaches Peter.

“Hey, Pete,” Harley says, looking absolutely beautiful. And hopeful. No. Nooooo. “Is that your essay? Dude, how’d you get that done in time? Did you have breakfast?”

Peter blinks. Flash blinks. Peter darts a glance at Flash. Flash smiles carefully at Harley.

“You know Pe—Peter?”

“Yeah, of course,” says Harley, setting his bag on the desk next to Peter’s, looking for something inside. “We work together. He’s the original intern, after all. Wouldn’t be here without him.” 

Is he doing this on purpose? Validating Peter’s internship? Making up for some of yesterday’s barbs? Is it an act? Is it real? What smells _so good?_

“Made these this morning,” Harley says, opening a tupperware triumphantly. “Tony ate, like, three. Five points to me. He said you don’t have any food allergies—”

“Tony...Stark?” whimpers Flash. _Whimpers._ Peter might laugh if he wasn’t really, really confused and also: salivating. Whatever Harley fed Tony three of, Peter’s pretty sure he could eat three hundred of. 

“Yeah, he sucks at showing up for meals, so this was a major victory,” Harley says easily, like this is a perfectly normal thing for him to be talking about in front of random kids in an AP Lit classroom at 7:45 in the morning. He catches Peter’s gaze, and one of those tiny cracks of uncertainty Peter glimpsed in the cafe splits his face for half-a-second. “I’m eating those if you’re not, Parker.”

“I’ll eat one,” Flash yelps, snatching as he speaks. Peter’s pretty proud of himself for ignoring the instinct to swat Flash’s hand away—and break half of his fingers, probably. He’s gotta let go of his desk, though, or he’s going to crack it. 

Flash peels away a layer of tinfoil, takes a big bite of whatever’s rolled up inside. He looks wholly prepared to act like he loves what’s in his mouth regardless of what he actually thinks, but then his eyes roll up in bliss— “Fuck, this is so _good_ ,” and he moans, sounding incredibly indecent. “Harley—you are a _god—_ ”

Peter sits up very straight. Grabs the tupperware before anyone thinks of stealing another roll. Stares Flash in the eye while he helps himself to—it’s some sort of pancake, rolled up with something creamy in the middle, and he smells banana and sugar and—oh. Oh, he understands why Flash made that sound. Wow. He tugs the tupperware to his chest protectively. “I’m starving,” he announces. “Th-thanks, Harley.”

Harley looks relieved, and pleased, and Peter’s brain gets horrifyingly stuck between the twin pleasures of the banana pancake in his mouth and the way Harley Keener looks in that jacket—until Flash shifts, and Peter’s eyes track to him automatically, and: fuck. _Fuck._ Pure hatred, right there in Flash’s eyes. 

Peter’s going to pay for this. Through Harley. If there’s anything Flash can do or say to humiliate Peter in front of Harley, he’s going to do it. 

Okay. Yeah. That’s gonna suck. But also the bell’s going to ring in two and a half minutes and he has two more banana-pancake-cream-cheese rolls in front of him and if he doesn’t finish them in time Ms. Terrance might make him throw them away and Peter is Spider-man and Spider-man _does not allow tragedies of that magnitude to happen._

Mission: accepted. 

* * *

Flash does his best to keep Harley’s attention off of Peter, after that. Which means Flash’s attention is only _indirectly_ on Peter.

Ned listens to the entire story with rapt enthusiasm. _(“Dude, the guy who made Iron Man’s breakfast made sure you ATE THE SAME BREAKFAST, this is—this is epic on previously unimagined levels—”)_. Peter turns in all his homework. He catches Harley watching him a few times; other than that, he seems to be going along with Flash’s ignore-Peter plan. Harley also works really hard in class, Peter notices. He’s taking tons of notes, stays focused during lectures, and asks pertinent questions. He seems to be serious about the whole school thing, and Peter feels a little bad for some of his earliest judgments. 

Mr. Stark texts him to remind him about lab time after school. Not like Peter would forget—but it warms him up a bit, in that secret pathetic place that’s always lonely and scared and has felt hungrier than ever since Harley arrived. 

It’s shaping into a pretty good school day. There’s a bit of dread for whatever Flash is working on—he’s taking time to think and plan before retaliating, which is not a good sign—Peter keeps himself small, doesn’t raise his hand in class, waits a full minute after Flash and Harley leave a room before heading out into the hallways himself. 

Just a few more hours. A few more hours, and he’ll have to face Mr. Stark. If today keeps going like it is now, he thinks he’ll be able to fake normal pretty convincingly. 

And gosh, those banana pancakes were _good._

* * *

 

“Hey, Angry Ex.”

“Yo, bold-yet-feeble Bassanio.”

Harley pauses, stung. “Ouch.”

Michelle Jones shrugs. “Do better.”

“Yeah, okay.” He takes a seat slowly, giving himself time to bolt if she lashes out again. She doesn’t even look up from her book. “That’s why I’m here. I was hoping you’d help me with something so I don’t have to massively fuck up to figure it out.”

“He learns,” she says dryly, and finally looks at him, curious, and the instinct that led him here feels immediately more valid. His instinct also tells him that her goodwill is likely to be short-lived, so he cuts to the chase. 

“What’s the story with Flash and Peter?”

“Aww, digging for dirt on your new best bud on day one? You’re more heartless than I gave you credit for.”

“Assuming you’ve assigned Flash as ‘best bud’—that takes some assuming on its own, but all things being relative, fair enough—I am absolutely that heartless. Which is why I can be useful in your little pure-puppy posse. If things are at all close to what I’m guessing, you’re about to glimpse the black depths of my heartless soul. Don’t pretend you’re not here for it.”

“Tone it down, cowboy. I’m not the one you need to impress.”

“Lies,” Harley says flatly. “You’re the _first_ one I need to impress. Other than Stark, I mean, but that’s—wait, this conversation is not going there. Um. You gonna help, or?”

Michelle narrows her eyes at him—seconds tick by—he starts to sweat—“Yeah, of course,” she says, sets her book down, and turns her the full terror of her attention on him, sounding perfectly amiable. 

Harley breathes again. 

“Prove your worthiness by passing a little test.”

He breathed too soon. 

“You’ve seen them interact together in three classes and at least once in the hallway. What’s your read on the situation? What have you deduced, sad Sherlock? Actions, intentions, intensity, motivations: hit me.”

“If I get it wrong, will you still help?”

“Probably not.”

“Crap. Okay. Flash is an insecure rich kid who thinks money matters most, probably because his parents value making money over spending time with him. He’s a good student but he has to work a lot harder at it than a lot of the kids here. Honestly: I relate. It’s been twenty-four hours and I’m already sweating my ass off just to keep up. But I digress. Uh, he has great taste in clothes. That’s why he likes me.”

Michelle quirks an eyebrow at that, but motions for him to go on. 

“Peter doesn’t do anything to provoke Flash, but he watches him like he’s a threat. Which: what the hell? How on earth is Flash a threat to Peter? Like the petty-bully vibes aren’t lost on me, but if it’s the usual small-time shit that comes from an inferiority complex—how does that get to Peter? What does Flash have that Peter doesn’t? Apart from money, I guess, but a) Peter doesn’t seem all that hung up on financials and b) if he was, Tony would bail him out. Let’s be real.”

“Go on,” urges Michelle. She looks amused. 

“I’m ruling out physical threats—okay, not ruling out, but sidelining because—I just can’t believe that Peter couldn’t take on Flash if he wanted to. Haven’t been introduced to any backup-bullies, either, so I’m hoping there’s not some sort of gang or side-kick gorilla moving behind-the-scenes. Now I _can_ see Peter choosing not to fight back, but _why?_ You asked for motivations—Flash is obvious. Classic envy, well-earned in this case. Again, I kinda feel for the guy. Except when I go back to _Peter’s_ motivations, and then things get a whole lot darker. Best guess: blackmail. Something personal, probably, and pretty major—Peter’s smart, takes risks. I don’t see him being manipulated by something small.” He ends on a grimace. Wants to be wrong. 

The way Michelle looks at him has changed, over the past few sentences, and she leans forward, intent. “Did you come to me to make sure you don’t do something to trigger Flash, like, revealing Peter’s biggest secret or something?”

“I mean, yeah.” Harley shrugs, a little helpless. “Honestly anything that leaves me operating a little less blind would help, but fuck—I can’t be the cause of Peter getting in major trouble, getting publicly humiliated,anything even close to that. That shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

“Call me MJ.” It’s abrupt. Off-topic. 

“Okay, sure,” he says, frustrated and trying not to show it. “Did I pass? Am I _worthy?_ ”

“MJ’s what my friends call me.”

Friends. He’s...kind of always wanted to have a friend.

“Oh,” he whispers. He probably looks like an idiot. He’s sweaty and smiling. “Uh. Nice. MJ.”

“Ya did good,” she says, a little droll, smiling back just a tiny bit. Snaps right back to super-intense deadpan. “Solid B-.”

Well that’s not a grade Harley calls _good._

“Nah, really, the part you’re wrong about is something it’s good to be wrong about. There’s no blackmail. More of a...trained response. Also, Peter is an idiot.”

“So the history—”

“Flash has bullied Peter since 4th grade.”

All the ways Harley related to Flash fizzle sour. 

“So Peter puts up with it because...he didn’t have a choice? When he was a kid? Okay, but—why doesn’t he change?”

Michelle— _MJ_ —shrugs. “Doesn’t think he should. I’m sure he’s got all sorts of ridiculous martyr-complex reasons why.”

It’s all far, far too close to home for Harley. “I hate bullies,” he whispers. It’s a vow, all promise and venom. “I fucking _hate_ _bullies_.” 

“Good,” says MJ. “Just don’t be one to beat one.”

“No promises,” he tells her, jaw tight. “I do promise to think before I act, though. A little bit. Maybe not a whole lot. Shit, I want to kick him in the face. It’d be poetic, wouldn’t it? He’s been drooling over these—” he props up his Spider-man shoes for emphasis—“all morning.”

MJ’s buried back in her book. “Go forth and conquer,” she says dispassionately. “Don’t get expelled.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Harley gets up to go, pauses, says softly: “Thanks, MJ.”

“Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Harley goes. 

* * *

He waits until the end of the day for the _getting_ part.

It gives him time to separate emotion from action, at least a little bit, and that’s probably a good thing. He’s resonating a bit too hard with issues he’s barely come aware of, conflicts that up until this morning had nothing to do with him—and spending a day with Flash convinces him that there’s nothing evil about the kid, even if he is a dick. It’s not like how he feels about Peter comes out of nowhere. Not like Harley wouldn’t feel similarly, if someone shoved him into Flash’s (admittedly very tasteful) shoes. 

But Harley’s got a very different role: Protect Peter Parker. A role he’s feeling oh-so-satisfyingly at home in as the time for action _finally_ ticks into being. He catches Peter before he can duck out of BC Calc (the bell’s still ringing—shit, but Peter’s fast when he wants to be). 

“Hey, Pete, I’m driving us to the lab—good, you know—I already promises Flash he could check out my car and there’s something I gotta tell him anyway, but we’ll be five minutes, tops. So just—don’t web off or something. Yeah? Tony’s expecting us.”

Peter doesn’t look happy, but he nods. Harley runs. Thrills on adrenaline and anticipation as he dodges through thickening crowds in the corridors, bursts out into blustery autumn on the parking lot. 

Flash shows up thirty seconds later. Harley waves him over, grinning; spots Peter lurking just outside the building. Not ideal, but not enough of a deterrent to put this off. Some things are best understood from the very beginning. 

“Ohhhh man, I’ve been dreaming about seeing what’s underneath this hood all day,” Flash says breathlessly, reaching out to caress the car the second he’s in reach. “I mean I love an Audi, that A8 from yesterday had me drooling—but _this_ —they don’t make ‘em like this anymore—”

“True,” says Harley. Makes that into his opening, knows his smile is turning mean. “Ready for more truth? ‘Cause it’s coming.”

Flash straightens up a bit, looks up hesitantly, sensing a change but not the tiniest bit ready. 

“You’ve told me all sorts of things about all sorts of people today,” Harley drawls. Lays the accent on a little thick, for emphasis. “I’m sure you’ve found out all you can about me. Want to know the _truth_ about my probation?”

“…Yes?” 

Well, the boy’s not a total fool. 

“I have a little hobby,” Harley says. Lounges back against the hood of his car, casts a critical eye over his nails. Like in the movies. “Busting bullies.” Snaps his eyes up to Flash’s, doesn’t try to smother the familiar spark of long-learned anger at all. “That’s my hobby, Flash. And you, Eugene Thompson, are a fucking bully.”

Flash stumbles back a step. Another step. His eyes are wide, his mouth trembling. 

“I have limits, of course. I have my own future to think of. Which is why I’m only on probation. Still, if you’re going to have a hobby, you might as well do it right—I like a finished job, of course—let me paint a little picture for you. My last day at Rose Hill High. Transfer’s gone through, Tony Stark’s waiting, I’m on to all the bigger and better things. Gotta sit through one last lecture from Principal Buttmunch, of course. That’s not his real name, of course, it’s just for flavor—”

Flash looks like he might try to run, and Harley can’t have that. Two quick steps on his much-longer legs and he’s got a friendly hand on Flash’s shoulder. From the corner of his eye, he catches Peter straightening up from where he’d been leaning against the wall, looking worried.Peter’s not the only one watching them, either. A couple kids even have phones out, taking video, though no one has ventured close enough to catch audio. Yet. 

Time to finish up. 

“So I sat through Principal Buttmunch’s very stirring speech about my bleak and horrible future, very courteously of course; and then I went out to the parking lot and got in my car and drove away.”

Flash looks almost let down by the anti-climatic ending. He’s really not that bad, Harley decides. Except the ways that he totally is. 

“My car was the only car to leave that parking lot. Nah, that’s an exaggeration—some of the girls were okay, their cars were fine, and there was this one teacher who let me eat lunch in her classroom when I wanted to—but Principal Buttmunch’s beloved Silverado? The football teams’ assorted gifts-from-daddy? Stuck. Probably still stuck, honestly, unless they got the mechanic from two towns over, because Rose Hill had just lost its one competent mechanic: me. Now some of those cars can be fixed up pretty quickly, even if they’ll only ever play one song on a radio that won’t shut off, and/or emit visible fart-clouds for years to come. The ones who could afford it, though, the ones who deserved it—guess they’re gonna need new cars.”

“Are you—are you confessing to me? Because I can use this against you, and if you threaten me—”

“What, weren’t you listening? No one knows who stalled those cars. My bet’s on those comic-book aliens, you know? Skrulls? They’re trying to divide our species so they can conquer us. It’s a thing. Back on topic— why would I threaten you, Flash? You’ve been genuinely kind to me today. I appreciate it. Really wouldn’t mind actually showing you around my car; honestly, it’s nice to see someone who appreciates my baby. We could even be friends.” 

He’s leaning his head against Flash’s shoulder, now. Probably laying it on way too thick. 

Whatever. It’s a style. 

“The only people I ever take issue with,” he says very softly, “Are people who fuck with me for the fun of it. Or fuck with my friends, for any reason at all. So, Flash—” Harley straightens up, offers his hand for the third time that day. “Whataya say? Friends?”

Flash looks—he doesn’t know how Flash looks. Like he doesn’t know what to feel, maybe. Like he’s angry _and_ humiliated _and_ fascinated. He eyes Harley’s hand like it’s the business end of a rattlesnake; shakes in anyway. 

“Friends,” he says, very cautiously. 

From a few meters away, Peter’s eyes are as huge and round as the pancakes Harley flipped. 

“So, uh,” Flash says, safely out of Harley’s reach; Harley’s climbing into his car. “If we’re friends, do I get to borrow your shoes?”

Harley laughs. “In your dreams, Lightning McQueen,” he says. In a totally friendly way, of course. Revs the car. “Outta the way. That’s my friend being all cute and awkward over there.”

Glides up to Peter. 

“Coming, Portia?”

“ _Still_ need to read _Merchant of Venice_ ,” Peter grumbles. Gets in. 

“Eh, you’d probably miss the point anyway,” Harley says consolingly. “Ready?”

Peter’s seatbelt clicks. He glances at Flash in the rearview mirror. “Not even a little bit,” he says.

"Nobody ever is," Harley boasts. Doesn't try to stop his grin. Today—especially right this second, this glimpse of Peter's quickly hidden smile—today feels like a fucking win. 

* * *

 


	8. babysitter and babysat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear beautiful people,  
> Thank you so much for reading this story. Thank you for every single kudos and bookmark and especially, *especially* for the amazing comments. I'm sorry it's been months since I updated, and this chapter is short and maybe not that amazing. I'm burned out with a lot of my life, and I guess my inspiration for this story was a bit of a tragic casualty in the smoking embers of my energy and aspirations...but the enthusiasm y'all bestowed kept me trying, and I'll keep trying and hopefully eventually get my groove back. So thanks <3

Mr. Stark is waiting for them when they step through the elevator, and Peter’s cheeks heat up with a blush he can’t explain. Mr. Stark’s eyes zero in on the hand Harley’d just casually slapped Peter’s shoulder with, and Peter is suddenly very, very aware of the warmth of it, even through three layers of clothing.

“Alright, Keener, you’re off the clock,” Mr. Stark says. “And for god’s sake, get some sleep. Pete, grab a snack and meet me in the lab.”

Peter’s a little busy trying not to look as thrown as he feels, but Harley just tosses up a lazy, mocking salute, winks at Peter— _winks,_ that is a thing that just happened—and backs two steps back into the elevator, which promptly whisks him away.

Mr. Stark’s halfway to his labs already, muttering schematics to FRIDAY along the way. Peter’s hungry (always), but he’s also urgently curious, so he hustles to catch up.

“Harley’s not—Harley’s not joining us in the lab?”

“This is your lab day, not his,” Mr. Stark says, half-distracted. “Just like always, Underoos. Mondays and Thursdays. That not working for you all of a sudden? I mess up the days of the week again?”

“No, no, of course not—I, I just—Harley said you’re teaching him about nanotech, and—”

“Look, spiderbaby, kid, nerdling, I may not have enough sense of self-preservation to get Rhodey or Pep off my case for three whole seconds, but even I don’t want to be in a lab with _both_ of you. You want to work together, great. You’ll probably survive whatever blows up. I’m too old and frail for that shit.”

“You’re _Iron Man._ And we don’t even know each other,” Peter says, bewildered.

Mr. Stark looks at him with this sardonic quirk to his lips that is way more knowing than it has any right to be. “Yeah?” he says. “Harley was looking pretty comfortable. Which: god, _finally._ I was starting to think he’d never start to settle in the city and I’d have to buy him a pet cow or something. Or a goat. One of those mini goats? The ones that faint? Are those the same breed—they faint _and_ they’re tiny, or you gotta choose one or the other? Anyway. I know you, and I know that hooligan hellraiser, and I’m pretty damn good at projecting results from known variables. The whole genius shtick, you know how it goes.”

They’re in the lab already, and Mr. Stark’s reaching impatiently for his backpack, waiting for Peter to excavate the suit from its depths. Peter gives himself a tiny _get with it_ shake. Hands over the suit. Stretches out the ripped sleeve so Mr. Stark knows what they’re working with. Mr. Stark whistles appreciatively.

“New villain on the block? Black Panther wannabe? Wow. I’m going to have to redesign my fabric after this, see if I can’t make it more resistant without losing flexibility—or just threaten and bribe you into doing nanotech armor full time—what’d this do to your arm?”

Peter rolls up his sleeve, showing off the shiny healing scars there. “Shankcat,” he says, by way of explanation.

“Wait,” Mr. Stark says, pausing from where he’s fitting the suit into the fabricator. “Harley said you lost a fight with a street cat—with a picture of an actual, real cat, maybe twelve pounds soaking wet—this is from _that?_ ”

“Let’s, uh, let’s go with the Black Panther wannabe,” Peter says, half embarrassed, half hopeful. “That sounds cooler—”

But Mr. Stark is laughing.

Peter hasn’t heard him laugh like this for a while. Not since the first few weeks, when he was celebrating his engagement and starting up lab hours and training sessions with Peter. It’s been...maybe more than a year. Maybe it’s because of Harley. _Must_ be because of Harley.

The thing is: right this second, Mr. Stark looks almost-happy. Peter will fight with everything he has, radioactive superpowers and just plain Peter Parker not-really-powers, to protect Mr. Stark. To keep him happy. He deserves it.

The thing is: Peter’s so jealous of Harley it hurts. Physically hurts.

The fabricator stitches his suit up in minutes. Mr. Stark has Peter program the repair sequence to make sure he knows how, then run the durability tests to know that the repairs will hold, won’t be a weak spot. Then he gets a whole new set of holographic software pulled up, and they’re messing around making digital chemical compound models, spitballing ideas for new polymers to try to weave stronger spidey-suit material out of, with the one Shankcat destroyed sloshing gently through a wash cycle in the background. Peter’s in his element—they’re talking pure chemistry right now, and it’s his best and favorite subject—and everything feels just right. Perfect temperature, lights not too bright, conversation coming without any agonizing over what to say or feeling stupid afterward for having said it. Which is why it’s a surprise when Mr. Stark lifts both hands deliberately out of the holographic model he was elbow-deep in, folds his arms across his chest, and turns to Peter with an expectant: “Alright, kid, spill it. Full-focus listening right here. Don’t waste it.”

Peter really wants to come up with something more intelligent than “uh, what?” but here he is, one hundred percent blank.

Mr. Stark is not impressed. “Whatever’s eating you. Lay it out for me. Let’s fix it.”

“I’m not—”

He doesn’t even get a verbal response to that, but the look is plenty loud.

“I’m fine,” he says, unfortunately all mumbly and defensive. It’s just...he’s not going to admit to Mr. Stark that it sucks to be replaced by someone smarter, taller, handsomer, and apparently better at making Mr. Stark laugh. Who cooks really good breakfast that Mr. Stark actually eats, and shuts Flash up when Peter hasn’t in all these years, and...this all sounds incredibly stupid, even in his own head. Here he is, working one-on-one with _Tony Stark,_ feeling pathetic about not getting enough from Tony Stark.

Wow.

“You’re not still upset about Happy dating Auntie May, are you? C’mon, Pete, he’s not that bad. He’s better than most. Definitely better than me. May knows what she’s doing—”

“I know,” Peter says, tension ratcheting up because he actually is kind upset about Happy dating Aunt May, and feels stupid for being being upset about it. “I _know._ It’s—it’s not that.”

Mr. Stark is waiting, but not very patiently. Peter swallows hard, gives up. “Fine,” he says. “Fine. I—I know it’s stupid, okay? I just...was it something I did?”

“What do you mean, something you did? What did you do?”

“I don’t know, that why I asked! It’s just, I thought I was earning, like, trust—like you wouldn’t have to take the suit again, and you’ve teaching me all this cool stuff and—but then...”

“Then _what?_ Wait. Is this about Harley?”

“You got me a _babysitter,_ Mr. Stark.” Peter sounds pathetic. He _is_ pathetic. He balls up the holographic file he’s been working on and throws it into a holographic trash can, wishing it was real. Would help a lot more with his frustrations that way.

Mr. Stark drags the file back out of the trash. “Okay, looks like we’re talking about this again,” he sighs, chagrined. “I told you on the phone—”

“This is fifty times more intense than whatever Happy did,” Peter says, not willing to trip into that strange little vulnerability hole again. It’s nice that Mr. Stark wants to keep him safe. What’s a hell of a lot nicer: being trusted to keep _himself_ safe. At the very least, as safe as another teenager with no actual superpowers of his own (his smirk doesn’t count) can keep him. “Just seems like you trust Harley a whole lot. And me...not that much. I want to...I want to fix that. Did I do something? How...how do I make up for it?”

“Okay, you’ve got the wrong end of this,” Mr. Stark says, after a pained, scrutinzing moment. He probably needs a second to remember why he puts up with Peter. Which is scary, actually, because why does he? “You and Harley Keener are two very different people, Peter, and two members of this shitshow species of ours I do actually trust—yes, you too—and part of while you’ll make such an effective team is _because_ you’re so different. But I’m doing that whole speech right now. Don’t wanna sound like Cap. But listen, if one of you did something to deserve an arrangement you apparently don’t want, it was Harley. Not you. Kid almost got himself expelled. This was a way to keep him in school, and I went for it.”

“Oh,” is all Peter manages. He hadn’t thought the rumors could be so true. He hadn’t thought Mr. Stark could be worried about Harley, not just Peter.

“Snag your idiot bleeding heart, huh?”

“I don’t have—”

“Sure, Spider-man. You’re not thinking about how to keep Harley from getting in trouble right now. Definitely not what’s happening. Yep.”

All Peter can do is collapse back in his office chair, laughing a little at himself, because of course Mr. Stark is right. And he's so giddy with relief he’s almost dizzy. Wait. He is dizzy. And hungry. _Starving._ But first, he's gotta at least try to be less the of the  _baby_ in  _babysitting._

“Um. Mr. Stark? I’m sorry.”

“Not allowed.” But he can see the way Mr. Stark’s shoulders have dropped, the good humor rolling back up his face, into his eyes.

“Okay, but I am. And—I’m not unhappy with the arrangement. Um. I don’t not-want Harley. No, wait, that—”

“Came out more truthfully than you intended?”

“ _Mr. Stark_.”

“ _Peter._ Hey, was that your stomach? Shit, you totally skipped on the snack, didn’t you? See, now—you want to know what you did? _This is what you did._ Harley Keener is _great_ at making people eat. He can literally annoy you into spite-eating, it's not pretty, you don't want to go through that. Go. Eat. Skedaddle. Scram—”

“I’m going!”

“You can go faster than that, you have superpowers—”

Just for that, Peter makes the rest of his exit on the ceiling.

  



End file.
